Swordsmen of Gor cog[oc-29

by John Norman

  Her name would be “Constantina.” Not the best choice, perhaps, for it was more of a free woman’s name than a slave’s name, but she wanted something stately and impressive. A more typical slave name would have been, say, Lana or Lita, or, say, a more familiar Earth-girl name, such as Jane, Audrey, or Cecily. Earth-girl names commonly serve as slave names on Gor. That is perhaps because Goreans think of Earth girls as being of slave stock, of superb slave stock. Indeed, some Goreans look for them in the markets, and it is said they are seldom disappointed. And the name of White, whom she easily recruited, would be “Pertinax.”

  Miss Wentworth paced back and forth in the hut, angrily.

  Later, she was occasionally less certain of the wisdom of her choice in recruiting White, for he was much larger and stronger than she, was, in his way, strikingly good looking, and, annoyingly, was as swift, if not more so, than she, in learning Gorean and certain ways of Gor. Certainly the dolt could not be more intelligent than she! She would have found that intolerable. Accordingly, any evidence of his intellectual superiority she discounted. He was, of course, a man of Earth, and so there was little to fear. Sometimes she felt distinctly uneasy when she was near him, as a female, particularly when she was in her costume, that of a slave. Once, in a fearful dream, as I would learn, she had dreamed he had stripped her publicly in the company offices while others looked on, bemused, or unconcerned. Then he had thrown her to his feet, kicked her, and put a collar on her, and had then put her to his pleasure, while the others continued to look on, and later politely applauded. She recalled going to her belly, crawling to his shoes, and, head down, frightened, kissing them.

  After that dream she was very surly, and bitter, toward him.

  If she suspected he might be regarding her, perhaps the arch of her chin, the curve of a calf, the turn of an ankle, she would berate him savagely.

  She took much pleasure in ordering him about.

  Pertinax, or White, if you prefer, understood little of this, and merely, as a man of Earth, redoubled his efforts to please his demanding employer.

  By now, some five days after being met in one of the reserves of Port Kar, the yellow signs which we had originally followed east from the coast would have disappeared. Had one followed them, and not been met, it would have been supposed that the likely destination of our trek would have laid still to the east. If one had then elected to continue in this direction, one would then have merely penetrated deeper and deeper, fruitlessly, and possibly dangerously, into the forests. The most direct route from the hut of Pertinax to the camp would have been, as nearly as I could determine, lacking maps and coordinates, either south by southeast, or, more likely, southeast.

  The indirection, or circuitry, of our route had been a matter, I supposed, of security. Whatever projects might be afoot in the forests, they were, it seemed, a matter of great secrecy.

  I had had a sense of where, in any event, approximately, we might be heading, probably to the Alexandra, some pasangs upriver, but how many pasangs I had no idea, fewer if the direct route was, say, south by southeast, more if it would have been southeast.

  This surmise, however, as noted, proved to be incorrect, at least with respect to our destination being the Alexandra, or, perhaps better, it was not so much incorrect as premature.

  I became more confident, day by day, that the Alexandra would figure in these matters.

  “Is my tea ready?” asked Miss Wentworth.

  “Nearly, Mistress,” said Cecily, who was tending the small pot on its rack, over a tiny fire, it in a small hole, a shallow hole, scooped out in the dirt floor of the hut.

  “You are slow,” said Miss Wentworth.

  “Forgive me, Mistress,” said Cecily.

  “Take off your clothes,” said Miss Wentworth.

  “What?” said Cecily.

  “Completely,” said Miss Wentworth.

  “‘Mistress’,” I suggested.

  “Mistress?” said Cecily.

  “Now,” said Miss Wentworth.

  “Must you humiliate her?” asked Pertinax.

  “Certainly,” snapped Miss Wentworth. “She is no more than a slave. They exist to be degraded and humiliated.”

  Whereas a slave may be degraded or humiliated, or beaten, or chained, or such, at the merest caprice of the master, it is seldom done. There would be no point to it, particularly in the case of a girl who is trying to please. The slave, like any animal, is to be governed with understanding, sympathy, and intelligence. Too, the Gorean master is usually quite fond of his slave, though I suppose few would be likely to admit this. But, fond of her or not, discipline is not to be compromised. Discipline must be firm, strict, and unyielding. She is, after all, a slave. She is to be held under an exact, uncompromised, unswerving discipline. She expects that, and is not disappointed.

  The least infraction, she knows, may be punished with the switch or lash.

  That is doubtless why there are so few infractions.

  The slave thrives under discipline; it comforts her, and orders and regulates her life; she is content; she is mastered; she rejoices in the discipline to which she is subject. She would not have it any other way.

  The greatest kindness a man can show a slave is to put her to his feet.

  Cecily cast me a frantic, plaintive look.

  I think she hated Miss Wentworth, and Miss Wentworth, surely, was not her mistress. Cecily’s relationship to her, of course, was radically shifted, following the unwelcome revelation that her blond, blue-eyed rival in beauty, so to speak, was not like herself a slave, but a free woman.

  “Do it,” I said, gently.

  Tears in her eyes, Cecily slipped from her tunic.

  “Serve me,” said Miss Wentworth.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said Cecily.

  “No,” I said to Cecily. “Serve me.”

  “Yes, Master,” said Cecily, gratefully.

  The word of the master, of course, takes precedence over the word of a free person who is not the slave’s master or mistress.

  “What of me?” snapped Miss Wentworth.

  “Serve yourself,” I said.

  “Pertinax!” she snapped.

  Pertinax then hurried forward, to fill another cup, which he then, promptly, delivered to Miss Wentworth.

  The slave girl, incidentally, and I suppose this is obvious, does not serve a beverage to a free woman in the manner she would serve a male, and certainly not in the way she would serve her master. For example, in paga serving, as in a paga tavern, the serving is done in such as way as, in effect, to entice and seduce the male. In such a situation the girl is trying to interest and excite the male and, at the very least, is petitioning his attention, presumably with the alcove in mind. The use of the girl comes with the price of the drink, and thus which girl is summoned to the table, or which, approaching the table, is accepted, has an import which might not be obvious to the stranger to such establishments. To be sure, many fellows are out for little more than a drink. They enter, they drink, talk, and leave. The customer’s option need not be exercised. Even if one does not conduct one’s waitress, so to speak, to an alcove, it is pleasant, in any event, to be served by a beautiful woman, collared, perhaps belled, in a bit of diaphanous silk, if that.

  As noted, then, the slave does not serve the free woman in the manner in which she is likely to serve a male, particularly her master. She would be savagely beaten, if not slain, should she be so ignorant or foolish as to do so. To the free woman the slave girl is, at best, a despicable convenience. She is loathed, probably because of her interest to men. The cruelty of the free woman to the slave is legendary. It is quite different from the usual relationship between a male master and his slave. Gorean slave girls dread free women. It is their fervent hope that they may be purchased by an attractive male, and, ideally, be his only slave.

  Sometimes, of course, as an act of cruelty, a free woman, for her amusement, before company, consisting of other free women, will order a terrified slave to offer h
er drink as she might a male, and then, when she does so, she will be denounced. “What are you doing, you wanton slut? How dare you! Do you think I am a gross, lustful beast! I am a noble free woman, you miserable, disgusting, salacious hussy, you abject, collared she-tarsk! I am insulted! You will pay for that! Bring me the whip!” “Yes, Mistress,” weeps the slave, and hurries to fetch the whip which, to the amusement of the free woman and her guests, will be used on her.

  The camp seemed to be, more than anything, a lumber camp, for logging was in process in the vicinity, and one, not unoften, heard the striking of axes, the crash of falling trees. These logs were trimmed, sawn, harnessed, and dragged by grunting, hissing draft tharlarion to staging areas where, skinned of bark, and piled, they awaited hoisting by weights and pulleys onto wagons, which were then drawn by tharlarion down a narrow, muddy road, soon disappearing amongst the trees. Interestingly, this road did not seem to lead west, toward the coast. Rather it seemed to lead southeast. As several of the logs bore the badges of Port Kar, at least some of them must have been taken from reserves, one supposed, illicitly.

  I did hear, upon occasion, away in the forest, the scream of a tarn.

  The camp was not palisaded, but its perimeters, for those expected to remain in the camp, not the work crews, were clear, a set of wands encircling the camp, rather like those which marked the reserves, but these wands bore no ribbons, with legends.

  I had, in wandering about, intended, for my interest, to cross the border of the wands, to scout the area, but I had been warned back by a prowling larl, which was, as nearly as I could determine, although it was not collared, a guard beast. I understood then why the camp, despite the richness of timber about, was not palisaded, at least not in the sense of being encircled by a close-set wall of sharpened palings. It did, of course, in a sense, have its palisade. Such beasts were its palisade.

  I held the cup of tea, and looked upon Cecily, who knelt before me. She knelt in the position of the tower slave, not that of the pleasure slave, as there was a free woman present. Cecily looked at me, shyly, and smiled. I, too, smiled. Well she knew that any beautiful woman on her knees, stripped and collared, is pleasant to look upon, in whatever position she kneels.

  The position of the Tower Slave is respectful, and demure. Further, she is usually well tunicked, or even robed. To be sure, her collar must always be visible. It would not do to confuse her with a free woman. The position of the pleasure slave, of course, is also respectful, but it is also provocative, and inviting. It must leave no doubt in the observer’s mind as to what sort of slave she is. The palms of her hands are usually down on her thighs, and her head up, but, if she is petitioning caresses, as is not uncommon, the palms are usually up, the backs of the hands on the thighs. The palms of a woman’s hands, as is well known, are unusually sensitive, as might be noted, for example, if one were, lightly, with the tip of a finger, to trace the form of a “Kef” on them. The palms, then, so offered to the master, with their exposed, sweet, sensitive cupping, the backs of the hands down on the thighs, as though bound to them, as though not permitted to leave them without permission, present a sign not difficult to read. Too, at the same time, the girl’s head is usually lowered. This makes clear her humility and need, and how much she is at the mercy of the master, for the least touch. Variations, of course, occur. Sometimes, perhaps in markets, the girl will kneel with her wrists crossed behind her, as though bound, or will have her hands clasped behind the back of her head, or the back of her neck. This lifts the breasts, nicely.

  “Oh,” said Miss Wentworth, impatiently, “have the filthy little tart, the disgusting trollop, put her clothes on!”

  “She is neither a tart, nor a trollop,” I said. “She is a slave. That is less than both.”

  The former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym smiled. She was far, now, from her antecedents, from Mayfair, from Oxford.

  She was now naught but a Gorean slave girl, on a world on which men knew what to do with such as she.

  I did not, incidentally, despite Miss Wentworth’s command, or behest, give Cecily permission to reclothe herself. Without that permission she would remain naked.

  Cecily was quite attractive.

  And this is not surprising.

  Is not a woman most attractive when she is naked, in a slave collar?

  “Slut, then!” said Miss Wentworth.

  “Every good slave,” I said, “should be a slut at her master’s feet.”

  “Disgusting!” said Miss Wentworth.

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Is that what men want, sluts?” said Miss Wentworth.

  “Far more than that,” I said, “a slave. Every man wants a slave, a helpless, vulnerable, ardent, needful slave.”

  “White,” she said, “does not!”

  “I am Pertinax,” said Pertinax.

  “What?” said Miss Wentworth.

  “There is no ship,” he said.

  “There will be a ship!” she cried. “I shall demand it!”

  “I am Pertinax,” he said.

  “You are mad!” she said. “That is over!”

  “No,” he said, quietly. “It has just begun.”

  “Pertinax,” she said, angrily, “is a man of Earth. He is civilized!”

  “High civilizations,” I said, “have invariably held slaves.”

  “He is a gentleman!” she said. “He would not want a slave.”

  “Gentlemen,” I said, “have often held slaves.”

  “Reassure him, Pertinax,” she snapped. “Tell him that no true man would want a slave!”

  I thought it interesting, how words could be twisted about, and used as levers, as cudgels, as whips, and such.

  “I am not sure of that,” he said. “Perhaps it is otherwise. Perhaps it is rather that any man who does not want a slave is not a true man.”

  “Certainly men desire slaves,” I said to Miss Wentworth. “I think that is clear. Beyond that the dispute seems to me verbal. I suppose one could define the true tarn as one that does not fly, the true larl as one that does not hunt, and so on, but this does not seem helpful in understanding the world. Putting aside cultural and historical considerations, as somehow irrelevant, surprisingly so, or illegitimate, astonishingly so, one might ponder whether or not biology is relevant to the matter, for example the radical sexual dimorphism of the human species, genetic predispositions, the pervasive relationships in nature of dominance and submission, and so on.”

  “I am a free woman!” said Miss Wentworth.

  I was not clear as to the pertinence of her claim, which was uttered almost hysterically.

  “There is also,” I said, “the test of life consequences. For example, what are the effects of one modality of life as opposed to another? Suppose one way of life reduces vitality, produces unhappiness, boredom, even misery, and anomie, a sense of meaninglessness, and another modality of life increases vitality, enhances life, produces happiness, charges one with energy, gives meaningfulness to one’s existence, and so on. Which is to be preferred?”

  “I am a free woman!” she cried.

  I was not disputing that. I wondered at her outburst.

  She was still, of course, in her tunic.

  Perhaps that was what motivated her outburst. Perhaps she wanted to utter something which might seem to belie her appearance, an appearance which doubtless made her uneasy, or somehow troubled her. Certainly Pertinax and I had no difficulty in accepting that she was a free woman. It did not seem, then, that she should be trying to convince us of that. Who then was she trying to convince? Pertinax naturally, from his background, I supposed, the antecedents of our situation, and so on, would think of her as a free woman. And I, too, thought of her as a free woman, particularly in view of her awkwardness, clumsiness, stiffness, and such, to say nothing of her manifest psychological and emotional problems. The contrast with Cecily was obvious. Cecily, now, not only accepted her sex, but rejoiced in it. At a man’s feet, owned, and mastered, she had found her
self.

  She had wanted to end her confusions and conflicts, and had discovered the sweetness and wholeness of a total surrender to the male, her master.

  She kissed his feet and became herself.

  “I am a free woman,” said Miss Wentworth, “a free woman, a free woman!”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “I wonder,” said Pertinax, thoughtfully.

  Pertinax’s remark surprised me. I had not expected it.

  “What?” cried Miss Wentworth.

  “In the offices, amongst the desks,” said he, “did I not imagine you often not in your svelte business wear, and high heels, so chic and yet so provocative, so arrogantly, insolently, calculatedly, deliberately provocative, but rather barefoot on the carpeting, naked and collared?”